The dark lasted for three heartbeats.
Jin counted them. One, with the black shape of the figure still kneeling at the foot of the dead tree. Two, with every person on the summit holding their breath. Three, with the faint sound of something cracking, deep inside the thing that had been the Sun of Heaven, like ice breaking on a frozen river.
Then it screamed, and it came for them.
It didn't stand up first. It didn't turn or look or make any warning at all. One moment it was kneeling at the roots, and the next it was across the plateau, a huge black shape moving so fast that the air behind it tore open with a sound like ripping cloth. Light poured off it as it came, but it wasn't gold anymore. It was a sick, twisted color, black at the center and burning white at the edges, and it bent and pulled at everything around it like water swirling down a drain.
"Mina!" Jin shouted.
